Hexene remains an important and commercially valuable product in the petrochemical industry. For example, 1-hexene comonomer can be copolymerized with ethylene to produce a flexible form of polyethylene. Another use of 1-hexene is the production of the linear aldehyde heptanal via 1-hexene hydroformylation.
Hexene is often isolated from a mixture of several different hydrocarbons. For example, hexene is often separated from other hydrocarbons through the use of a distillation tower. These conventional hexene isolation methods result in significant impurities in the hexene product. Accordingly, additional processing and purification procedures must take place. These additional processes are often costly and highly inefficient.
Thus, there is a need for an efficient method of isolating hexene from a hydrocarbon mixture that results in a product with minimal impurities and does not require costly purification procedures.